


Holding Onto You

by PrettyWeeper16



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7852612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyWeeper16/pseuds/PrettyWeeper16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>***WARNING, GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF RAPE, SELF HARM, SUICIDE.*** Tyler's been struggling with nightmares that he can't understand, branching from something he knows happened but chooses to avoid. So, he pushes it to the back of his mind and tries to forget that it ever happened. Tyler quickly gets worse and worse as time goes on, and school is hard enough for him. He can hardly pull himself out of bed. His parents are afraid for him, knowing he has suicidal tendencies. What happens in his dreams, he finds hard to tell for fear his family will find him crazy, but soon, they force Tyler to tell them. Tyler doesn't feel safe. His psychiatrist tells him one thing, but he's feeling the other way. Tyler is now forced to face his nightmares, and try to reverse them when he's at his lowest moment ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Happened to Tyler Joseph.

**September 24, 2002**

**2:30 PM**

**Columbus, Ohio**

 

   15 year-old Tyler Joseph opens the front door at school to let himself out. His classmates and the upperclassmen file out behind him in an orderly fashion, either heading for their bus or towards the parking lot. Tyler doesn't take the bus home. He saunters towards the parking lot, walking slowly. Leaves blow, and the chilly air nips at his cheeks. The dry autumn grass crunches underneath his feet. He's a freshman in high school, and he's almost made it through his first month. 

   The bench awaits him aside the parking lot. He walks slowly over to it and sits down, scaling the parking lot with his dark brown eyes for his mother, who hasn't arrived yet. "That's strange," he thinks. "She's usually here right on time." He slouches and cups his hands over his mouth, breathing into them to warm his soft cheeks. A chill travels up his spine. It's cold for late September. 

    He waits patiently, but doesn't see her. He wonders if he should go to the office to use their phone to call her, but he figures she'll be there within the next five minutes. He shifts on the seat, thinking about how boring his day went. Nothing happened. His friends talked to him, but nothing cool happened. "I guess that's to be expected when you go to a small Christian school," he thinks. 

    He waits for another five minutes, but his mother still isn't there. It's likely that she's been held up at work, but every time that happens, and she's expecting to work later, she calls Tyler's school and has them relay the message to take the bus. But that didn't happen today, and that leaves Tyler out in the cold, wondering where she is or if he should start walking home. 

    He allows another five minutes to pass by, and then he stands up. He begins to walk down the sidewalk, shrugging his jacket higher to cover his mouth. He breathes into it, making an effort to keep himself warm. He shoves his hands back into his pockets, kicking through the colored leaves that the breeze has blown into his way. The colors distract him, and his eyes dart around at his feet, taking in all of the autumnal colors. Soon he's at the end of the school driveway, and the short back road greets his eyes. He begins walking down, towards the main road.

    Suddenly, the sound of a car approaching makes Tyler lift his eyes. A car much like his mother's, a navy blue color with tinted windows, turns off of the main road onto the road leading to his school. Tyler stops for a minute, registering that it's probably his mother. He hopes that she won't be upset that he started walking towards the main road, planning to walk home by himself. 

    The car slows to a halt beside him. Tyler doesn't even bother looking through the window to his mother as he opens the door and ducks inside. He closes the door behind him and reaches for the buckle, but then stops as he notices the car lock click from the inside. His mother never does that. He looks up to the driver's seat and finds to his horror a _masked_  man at the steering wheel. Tyler immediately goes to push the door open, but he can't. The driver has done something. Tyler pounds on the window, trying to break the glass, screaming for help, but it's no use. 

    Suddenly there's a shooting pain in his thigh. Tyler looks down and sees a needle poking out from his pants. Tyler looks up at the driver with tears in his eyes. "No, please. I just want to go home," he says. Everything goes  _Blurry._ Tyler is about to drift off to a deep sleep. He makes an effort to keep his eyes open, trying with all of his might. "Please don't do this," Tyler yells. Just as he gives up the fight and can't do it anymore, the man opens his mouth to speak. 

     A low growl rises from the kidnapper's throat. "Don't even try to fight it, Tyler Joseph." 


	2. Living Hell.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler comes face-to-face with his kidnapper and is forced to acts he never could imagine.

    **Unknown Time**

**Unknown Location**

 

 

Tyler's eyes flutter open. A headache threatens to crush his skull. A bright, white light threatens to blind him. He has no idea where he is and struggles for a moment to remember what happened to him. After a moment, it all comes rushing back to him. He was about to enter the main road when a familiar-looking car approached him. Thinking it was his mother, due to the identical car model, he opened the passenger side door and got inside. The sound of the lock clicking from the inside echoed through his mind as he tried to sit up. 

    He remembered that he had been knocked out by some kind of injection. As Tyler sat up, his eyes adjusting to the light, he felt down his leg to where the needle had been shoved inside his skin. Only, his hand comes away cold. He looks down and sees that his leg is bare, and that he's naked. He shrieks and pulls his legs to his chest, frightened breaths racking his body. "What on earth is going on? Where am I? Why am I naked?" he whispers to himself as tears break through his eyes. 

    Tyler wraps his arms tighter around himself as he suddenly hears footsteps. He looks towards a spiral staircase in the corner, where large feet approach. Tyler is nearly hyperventilating. He looks around for something he can use to defend himself, but finds nothing. He's bare and without anything to protect himself with. Tyler squeezes his eyes shut and holds his arms around his legs for dear life, horrified to expose himself. When he opens his eyes, he sees the legs of the man who came down the stairs. Tyler looks up and sees his face, still masked. "Who are you?!" Tyler screams. "Where am I?! WHY DO YOU HAVE ME HERE?!" The man chuckles and reaches down, picking Tyler up and curling his hands behind his back, making him unable to hit out. Tyler screams. "Let me go!" He lashes around and kicks his legs, but the man yanks his arms back. 

    The man shoves Tyler against a wall. "This will be easier if you don't try so hard. This will be easier for you if you shut up and stop moving. Got it?" the man growls in Tyler's ear. Tyler whimpers and shudders, nodding as he feels something cold be pressed against his temple. He recognizes it as the barrel of a gun. He's shoved forward into another room and thrown against a wall. This room is dim, but up above the doorframe he just came through is a clock. It reads "3:00 P.M.". Tyler shudders. He's supposed to be at home with his family. He lets out a sob. He might never see home again. This might be his last night. If he doesn't comply to what his kidnapper demands, that gun that had been against his temple could be put to use this time. 

    Tyler scoots backwards against the wall as the masked man approaches after locking the door behind him. Tyler looks up at the walls around him, seeing horrible torture devices he didn't even know existed. His mind races, and his stomach turns until he's about to lose everything he ate today. His throat is blocked by emotion. He begins to hyperventilate again as the man gets closer and closer, eventually shoving Tyler into a corner. Tyler finds his way around the lump in his throat and cries out, "Please, just let me go. I promise I'll never tell anybody, ever! I promise nobody will ever know about this. Just, please, let me go home." 

    The masked man shakes his head and reaches for one of the devices on the wall. A long leather strap, each strip of leather braided. "Not until I get exactly what I want," he says. He reaches out with lightning speed and takes Tyler by the arm, pushing him against another wall. "Don't even think about moving," he growls. Tyler whimpers as the cold wall hits his skin. He hears the man back up, hears the slapping of the whip in his palms. Suddenly the whip cracks through the air and lands on the soft skin on Tyler's back. Tyler screams in pain as the whip makes its first mark on his back. He feels the blood begin to trickle down. The whip retreats and returns, more painful with each lash. Tyler's throat begins to go sore and scratchy as his screams ring out, and soon, he can't even let out a single peep. His vocal chords are shredded.

    The final lash rings out, and by now Tyler is crouched on the floor, sobbing. "Dear God, please get me out of here," he whispers. The man comes over to him and takes him by the arm, pulling him up. He brings Tyler to a table in the center of the room, a cold metal table that looks anything but inviting. The man pushes Tyler on top of it, Tyler's face pressed to the metal. Hot tears drop from his eye and drip onto the table beneath him, running hot down his cheek. He wishes for sleep, and that's what he gets as he feels the familiar shooting pain in his thigh. His throbbing back is left behind as Tyler falls into the black pit of unconsciousness.

   

                                                                                                ____________________________________________________

 

    He wakes up in the car. The clothes he wore to school are clad to his body again, looking the same way they had when he'd been drugged the first time after getting into the stranger's car. His backpack is at his feet. He blinks a few times, registering where he is, and then looks up to the glowing digital clock inside the dashboard. 3:50 P.M.. Tyler can't even breathe. He looks over and sees the masked man driving. Tyler grips his thighs and shifts a little bit in his seat, feeling more uncomfortable than he thought humanly possible. "Where are you taking me?" he croaks. It comes out as a whisper, since his screaming had seriously damaged his vocal chords. He waits for the man's reply, but doesn't receive one. Tyler thinks about how he was knocked out a second time, and remembers the feeling of lying face-down on the cold metal table. He remembers falling asleep, and to his horror he suddenly realizes what the man must have done to him. Tyler's heart pounds in his chest as he stares out the window, humiliated over what the man must have done to him, feeling like he doesn't even belong in his own body anymore, feeling like his body is no longer his. He can't believe it. He was just trying to walk home, and all this has happened. 

    What is he supposed to tell his parents if he makes it home? Where is he going now? He is back in his clothes, so he assumes that he is being taken home. He looks up through the dashboard up at the sky. It looks no different than it did when Tyler first left school. Tyler wants to curl up in the seat and cry his eyes out, but he knows that he can't do that until he is somewhere safer. Instead, he squeezes his eyes shut. He grips his dress pants in his fists and waits to see where he is going to be dropped. 

    Soon, he sees the familiar public sign with the name of his school plastered over it. His breath catches in his throat. He's being dropped off where he was first taken. Tears of relief threaten to break through his eyes. He swallows them. It's only been just over an hour since all of this happened. Tyler can't believe it has gone so fast. It happened, and then it was over. He expected his LIFE to be over, but instead he's been pardoned. He doesn't know how he'll explain to his mother, or if he'll tell his parents anything, but he'll find a way. He's going home. The masked man halts at the end of the school driveway. He looks at Tyler in the eyes. "Listen to me, kid. You tell nobody about this. Nobody. Otherwise, you're dead. You hear me? If you tell anybody, you'll be six feet under within a year and nobody will really know what happened to you. Got it?" he asks. Tyler gets a chill up his spine. "Now you go up to that driveway and wait for whoever is picking you up." Tyler nods. The man unlocks the door and Tyler practically jumps out, stepping up onto the curb, his backpack clenched in his hands. The man sends him one last glare and then reaches over to shut the door, locking it audibly once again from the inside; a sound that Tyler will never, ever forget. Tyler is left standing alone on the sidewalk. The kidnapper's tires screech as he does a donut and speeds back off towards the main road. Tyler doesn't look back at him. He just sets off walking up the short driveway. He wants to cry and scream and break things. He wants to rip up his clothes and burn them. He wants to scrub his skin until every last bit of that man is off of him. He never wants to look at anybody ever again. As one of the teachers drives past him, he does his best not to look weird but he wants to break everything. He has no idea what he's going to do. He sees no purpose. He doesn't know what he's going to do. He needs to tell somebody, but he knows that this man is watching him, and if he does, Tyler knows he will be murdered within the year. The front doors of the school are still unlocked since the business hours aren't over. He pulls open the door and immediately turns to go to the boy's bathroom. His stomach twists. He throws open the bathroom door and runs inside, into a stall, and drops to his knees, throwing up into the toilet. Tears fall from his eyes as the taste of horror drips from his mouth; the taste of abuse and violence and drugs; the taste of rape. Tyler flushes the toilet and leans against the wall, sitting on the floor. He takes toilet paper from its roller and wipes his eyes, trying to stop sobbing. It takes a couple minutes, but he regroups. He stands up and goes to the sink, placing his mouth underneath the tap, letting the water run into his mouth. He swishes and spits the water back into the sink, trying his best to get the taste out of his mouth. He stands up straight and looks into the mirror, staring back at himself. He's never looked so pale in his whole life. He reaches up and touches his face, feeling no heat in his cheeks. He looks down at his hands, seeing them tremble. He grips the sink, taking deep breaths. Tyler twists around and unbuttons his shirt, dropping his jacket. He lifts the back of his shirt, preparing himself to see the lashes on his back. And sure enough, there they were. Bright and bloody. He looked at the back of his shirt again, this time noticing the light blood stains. His stomach turns again, and soon he's back in the bathroom stall, throwing up again. He stands up and flushes again, walking to the sink to rinse his mouth yet again. He quickly buttons his shirt back up and tucks it in around his belt, putting his jacket back on and zipping it back up. Then, he heads for the gym. His mother will arrive soon, and she will know where to find him. Playing basketball in the gym. That's where he stays when his mom comes to pick him up late. He enters the gym and takes a ball from the rack, dribbling it and shooting around, trying to look fine in case anybody walked in. But he's lying to himself, and he knows it. He's  _so very far from fine_. 

    Only a little bit of time passes, Tyler guesses, before his mother suddenly walks into the gym. Kelly Joseph stands in the doorway, watching her son weakly make his final shot before putting the ball back on the rack. Kelly gives her son a strange look, sizing him up. She looks at his face and seems to immediately know that something is wrong. "Hey, sorry I'm late. I got held up at work." She places her hand on Tyler's shoulder and leads him out of the gym. "Are you okay?" she asks. Tyler opens his mouth to speak, wanting so badly to tell her what happened to him within just an hour, but remembers that man telling him that he'll be dead if he says a thing. Tyler shakes his head. 

    He looks at his mother. "Not really. I threw up twice a little while ago. My stomach is killing me," he says. Kelly gives her apologies that he's not feeling well and takes him out to the car. Tyler stops for a minute in the parking lot, looking down at the car that he feels like he was just in, not wanting to step into a car that was the same model as the one that drove him away to a horrible man's house. A car that changed his life. Kelly asks him what's wrong, to which Tyler answers, "Nothing. Nothing at all." He climbs in slowly and buckles up. The whole way home, he keeps looking over at the driver's seat, repeatedly making sure that his mother is the one sitting in the seat. The whole drive home feels like a dream. He doesn't feel a thing. He can't feel the shooting, stinging pain in his back. He can't feel anything at all. He feels like he is in a dream. He can only taste the vomit in his mouth. As soon as his mother parks the car, Tyler runs inside, runs upstairs to the bathroom he shares with his brother Zack. He leans over the toilet and releases his stomach again, unable to contain it. The drugs that had put him to sleep are really messing with his stomach, and add that to the horror he'd just been through. "Is this real?" he whispers to himself. "This can't be real. This didn't happen. This never happened." But he knows that it did. Everything just still feels like a dream to him. He stands up and furiously rips off his clothing. He stands naked once again, and that horrifies him. He can't even look at himself in the mirror. Everything hurts. His eyes burn from holding back tears. He's going to scrub his skin until every touch that man laid on him is gone. He rips the shower curtain to the side and turns the water on hot. He waits for it to heat, brushing his teeth in the mean time. He hears a knock on the door but doesn't open the door. "I'm fine," he calls to whoever is knocking to check on him. Probably his mother. He doesn't listen. He crosses the bathroom to the shower and gets in, the hot water nearly burning his skin. He begins to scrub himself furiously, stopping for nothing. He's covered his entire first half, scrubbing so hard that his skin is a bright red and scraped raw in some places. Steam begins to fill the bathroom. Tyler knows that he's going to have to turn his back to the water and rinse and scrub it, and he's not ready for that. He knows he has to, though, so he slowly turns around. As soon as the burning water first touches his back, he nearly lets out a screen. This isn't going to work. He reaches to turn the water cold, but he knows that cold water won't get germs off like hot water will, and he wants every germ that man left off of his skin by the time this shower is declared over. So, Tyler reaches outside the shower for a dry wash cloth, and bites down on it, trying with everything inside of him not to scream as the blood is rinsed off of his raw, slashed back. Tears of both mental and physical pain fall from his eyes, falling into the water at his feet and blending with the shower water as it returns to the drain. Tyler drops to his knees and lets the water fall on him as he sobs, biting down on his cloth, sobbing. covers his face with his hands and tries hard not to think about that man and his house, his cold rooms and his room that created nightmares for the rest of Tyler's sad life. Tyler leans down and puts his head on the shower floor, letting the hot tears fall down. His back screams, but Tyler doesn't have the energy to anymore, even though he wants to so badly. 

    He finally decides to get out. When he does, he looks up at the clock above the door and realizes that it's been an hour. He wraps the towel around himself, going to wrap it around his waist to walk out, but then he remembers his back. He awkwardly wraps it around his entire body and runs across the hall to his bedroom he shares with Zack. He slams the door shut and turns the lock when he finds to his relief that Zack isn't in there. He walks over to his dresser and takes out a tee shirt, underwear, and basketball shorts. He drops his towel by the door, changes, and immediately gets into bed, staring out the window across from him, where the sun is setting over the horizon. From his bed, he can hear his family eating dinner downstairs. He listens closely. 

     "What's up with Tyler?" Zack asks. "He was in the shower for an hour. Literally." 

    "He's sick. Threw up a lot today," his mother replies. 

    "Yeah, I heard him when he got home," Zack says. 

    "Is Tyler going to be okay?" Jay asks in his little voice. He's the youngest. 

    "Yes, Jay, Tyler is going to be fine. He's just not feeling well," his father replies. 

    Tyler sighs and closes his eyes, his stomach gnawing at him. He pulls the sheets up over his head, trying to hide. He's convinced that somewhere, the masked man is still watching him, just waiting for Tyler to let out his secret, just waiting to kill Tyler. Tyler wants to scream, but instead he continues to cry until his pillow is soaked with his tears. He doesn't register what's going on around him until he stops crying and looks up at the clock, seeing that it's 1 a.m.. 


	3. The Road Called Secrecy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the next week, Tyler struggles to get out of bed and go to school. He has to find a way to make it look like everything is fine.

 The next day, Mrs. Joseph comes in to check on her son after Zack and Maddie and Jay have left for school. She sits down on his bed and reaches over with one hand to shake him gently. "Tyler, are you awake?" she asks quietly. Tyler turns over to face her, feeling worse than he did last night. She gives him a strange look and reaches to touch his face. "Did you sleep at all last night?" she asks. "Your eyes are all puffy and you have dark circles." Tyler shakes his head, not even wanting to speak. He'd been crying all night and had nothing to say. Kelly clicks her tongue and pulls the sheets over him again. "Go to sleep, Tyler. You won't get any better if you don't." Tyler watches with heavy eyes as his mother stands up and walks out the bedroom door. 

    Tyler stays in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He knows he'll have to get up at some point. His stomach is gnawing in hunger, finally. He honestly never thought he'd eat again. After the way his stomach felt last night, he wouldn't have been surprised. Tyler doesn't even want to move as he glared up at the ceiling blankly, feeling almost nothing in his weak body. After who knows how long, he slowly sits up. He waits for his stomach to turn, but it doesn't to his surprise. He swings his legs over the side of his bed, but stops, gasping. His whole body is sore beyond belief, especially his lower region, including his legs and butt. Even after years of basketball, the soreness of a hard workout from his coach had nothing on the soreness in his legs right now. His back is screaming, but he stands up slowly and moves across the hall to the bathroom. Finding himself slightly unprepared to look at his reflection in the mirror, he waits for a moment to gather his courage. He takes a deep breath and looks up. His eyes are red and swollen, making it obvious that he'd cried a lot. The baggy dark circles under his eyes are horrifying. His face is still pale, looking sallow and blank. His face falls and tears threaten to break through, but he blinks them away. He's cried enough. Instead he turns the faucet on and washes his face with cool water, taking a washcloth and holding them over his swollen, hot eyelids. For a minute he just stands there, finally able to register what's happened to him. He wants more than anything to tell his mother and to get the police involved, but he knows that the man out there is watching him, and if Tyler says anything he'll die and nobody will ever know that he'd been raped. One day, though, Tyler will tell somebody. 

     Tyler removes the washcloth from his eyes and leaves it on the counter. He turns around to pull up his shirt to check on his back. It's clean, the blood gone. The skin around the slashes looks red and irritated and inflamed, but Tyler knows there's nothing he can do about it. He lowers his shirt and makes sure there's no blood on it before he leaves the bathroom and heads for the stairs. He can hear his mother in the living room, watching the News. A sound that he never thought he'd hear again as he sat naked against the wall in the cold, dim basement being cornered by a tall masked man. Tyler shakes his head as if to shake off the thought and walks over to the couch to sit beside his mother. He weakly leans over and lays his head in her lap, and she runs her fingers through his dark hair. "How you feeling, Ty?" she asks. Tyler waits for a second to respond, trying his hardest not to blurt out the truth of how he really felt and what had really happened to him. He swallows. 

     "My stomach doesn't hurt like it did last night. I'm actually kind of hungry," he says. 

     "Well, that's really good! I'll go get you something small. You don't want to overwhelm your stomach and throw up again," she says, excusing herself. 

     Tyler stares blankly at the TV screen, trying to focus his attention on that instead. But he was slightly disappointed. No masked rapist had been caught. No wild chase after a navy blue Volkswagen Jetta. Tyler sighs and lies there on his side, staring blankly into the screen. There was nothing on it that could save him from having to tell the truth himself. Nothing to save him from the emotional nightmare he's going through. Nothing to save him from the physical pain surging through his body, so intense that it made him feel so numb inside. Eventually his mother comes back into the living room with two pieces of toast and sits down next to Tyler, supporting his weight. "Take it easy. Don't eat too fast," she says. Tyler wants to tell her that right now, eating too fast is nothing to worry about because it's the last thing he'll be doing, but he doesn't. He bites into the crispy bread slowly, taking a minute in between bites, making sure that his stomach won't reject it. He knows he's not sick. He knows that last night was because of the horror and the drugs he'd been given, but he doesn't tell her. He sits there, leaning against her, watching the TV screen, unmoving. "You'll be better in no time," Kelly says, rubbing Tyler's hair with her hand. If only she knew that it would take years and years for Tyler to truly recover from what he'd just been through. 

 

 

                                                                              _______________________________________________________________

 

     Tyler sits on his bedside, staring out the window for half of the day. He doesn't know how to think or feel, and it's getting to him. He's still having a hard time believing what happened to him last night right after school, and how it had just taken an hour for his life to be flipped upside down. He can't comprehend it. It's all a fog, yet it is all so real. He finds it impossible to fully get through his head that he was raped, so he sits there for hours just repeating it through his head over and over and over again until he finally realizes it, and his mind is finally able to accept it. When this happens, he bursts into tears and falls onto his side, sobbing into his pillow. "No, not me, please!" he yells into his pillow, burying his face so that his mother can't hear him downstairs. He screams into his wet pillow over and over again, punching his mattress, doing anything he can to get rid of the anger he holds inside over what happened to him. He knows that it will take years to finally come to terms with it, but he still screams and he still releases this anger that he's feeling in the moment. "Everything hurts," he whispers, hiccuping and rolling onto his back. Tears stream down his soft cheeks as he finds himself staring up at the ceiling again. "It all hurts so bad." The clock by his bed reads noon, and that means it will be two and a half more hours before his family arrives. Zack will come later due to being at basketball practice, which Tyler is supposed to be attending too. Tyler rubs his face with his palms and wipes away his tears, sitting up again. He reaches over and lifts up his window, allowing the air to flow through. The crispness fills his room and blows through his short hair, cooling him down after having that fight with his bed. He stares up at the sky, thinking. "Nothing is going to be easy anymore. This little life I have will never be the same. I might as well quit," he thinks to himself. "No, don't think that way. Don't go in that direction, Tyler. Remember what Dad said about rabbit trails. Don't let your mind wander off. You don't want to kill yourself, okay? Stop thinking that." He wipes beads of sweat off of his forehead and stands up, going for the door. His head pounds. He knows it's because of all the crying and that he hasn't had anything to drink. He goes downstairs slowly and looks out the window, seeing his mother shooting hoops on their tiny court outside. He doesn't have to explain why he's been crying if she doesn't see him. Tyler goes into the kitchen and fills a glass with water, drinking it down and going for another right after. 

He stands near the kitchen sink, staring down into the drain. He doesn't really see a purpose anymore. If he lives, he'll have to face knowing that something was taken from him against his will, and that he can't tell anybody anything. But if he dies, he'll go somewhere better. There's a decision he has to make. Does he really want to be here? Tyler puts his head in his hands. His warm cheeks against his palms remind him of the times that he'd been depressed, and cried to himself in the shower, and how after all of those times he'd sat down at his desk and written something. An idea forms in his mind, and he goes upstairs as quickly as he can. Just as he closes his bedroom door, he hears the front door open and close, signaling that his mother's return from the outdoors. Tyler rushes over to his desk and sits down, pulling out his notebook. With a heavy heart, he takes out his pen. He stares down at the blank page for a while, not quite sure what to write. He clicks his pen open. "Taking over my body, back in control..." is the first thing he can manage to write. He doesn't know what else to write. He doesn't know how to channel his emotions onto the paper, like he usually can. Finally, something comes to him. "Remember the moment, you know exactly where you going. The next moment, before you know it, time is slowing and it's frozen still. The window sill looks really nice, right? You think twice about your life." Tyler stares at the window beside him, finding inspiration from it. Finding inspiration from how just a few moments ago he was considering taking his own life via that window. A shiver runs up his spine and he forces himself to look away from it. The lamp above him shines a golden light onto his hands, which are now spread on the paper. He stays for a few minutes that way, and then finally comes up with something. "Fight it, take the pain, ignite it." Tyler draws a flame on the side of the page as he pictures his pain igniting. A flame of courage ignites in his skin.  
Tyler's running out of patience. He stands up and paces the room, running his fingers through his hair. The pain on his back reminds him of his dilemma. The familiar rush of courage after writing a song blasts through him, heating his skin. He wants to do something. He doesn't want to keep this inside. He's ready to tell his mother. He comes up with a plan as he paces his room. He mutters to himself. "If I tell Mom, we can call the police right after and they can come here and protect us before the guy can kill me. That would work," he says. He stops mid-pace and puts half of his face in his hand. He knows he can't do that, because the memory of the man's bad breath and stinging words still haunt him. He shouldn't risk telling somebody. Maybe if he doesn't kill Tyler, he'll kill someone else that he loves. Tyler can't risk that, and he knows it. Tyler drops to his knees on the floor and rolls over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. "I bet a lot of me was lost," he whispers, thinking about the night before, when he went unconscious. He still doesn't know what really happened to him while he was out. He'd lost something of him. That teenage boy happiness that he had.   
Suddenly, it's all gone from him, and he can't get it back.


	4. Into the Future.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few years into the future, Tyler's struggles continue.

      March 24, 2007 

      Tyler Robert Joseph, 18 years old. 

      Columbus, Ohio

 

      Tyler sits in the waiting room of his therapist's office, his mother next to him. "Tyler, whatever's going on really needs to be spoken about today, okay? I know you've been holding things in to Doctor Baker and she knows it, too. You're having nightmares, Tyler, and you need to talk to somebody about it. It's not so bad, I promise. Okay?" Kelly Joseph asks, placing a hand on her son's shoulder. Tyler nods and sits back, crossing his arms over his chest. "Good. You'll feel much better after," Kelly says. Suddenly, the office door opens. Tyler looks up and finds Doctor Baker standing across the hall from him. 

      "Tyler, come in. Will your mother be sitting in with you today?" she asks, her extremely perfect white teeth showing underneath her cherry red lipstick. She holds a clipboard in her arms. 

      "I mean, only if she wants to," Tyler mutters, looking at his mother. She shakes her head and waves it off. 

      "I think Tyler will be just fine without me," she says, nodding to Doctor Baker. 

      Doctor Baker nods and ushers Tyler into the tiny office gently. She sits down in her rolling chair and rolls over to her tiny potted cactus in the window, watering it lightly. "So, Tyler," she says, turning in her chair to look at him. "How did this week go?" She reaches into her drawer and tosses a mint to Tyler, fulfilling the only true routine of their visits together. Also, quite frankly, Tyler's favorite part. Tyler pops the mint into his mouth and grasps his knee anxiously, rubbing his wrists together as he comes up with a half-honest answer that will pass as believable. He doesn't want to be here, but his mother makes him come to these. He thinks about his week. Nothing happened, really. Just school, basketball, and oh yeah--crippling nightmares! How could he forget? He sits back in his chair and takes a deep breath, looking up at Doctor Baker. 

      "Nothing interesting happened. The only thing is that I've been having these terrible nightmares where I'm being followed around by this cloud, or blur or something. But it's a very dark figure, and it has glowing red eyes, and it pushes me to do something that I know I shouldn't do. And as much as I hate to say it, this figure is starting to make me almost  _want_ to do it," Tyler says. Doctor Baker nods, and stares at him for a while, unblinking and unmoving, her eyes darting across Tyler's face. It made him anxious when she did that. He felt like she was finding flaws in his face, or in his tone, or in just himself in general. He hates when anybody does that. Each time she just sits there and looks at him, he wants to scream. "Say something!" but each time, he does his best to be patient. 

      Finally, she speaks. "And, Tyler, what is this figure telling you to do, exactly?" she asks, leaning forward to place her elbow on her knee as she awaits his answer with a chin in her hands. For a minute, Tyler is relieved to see that she looks actually  _interested_. No therapist or counselor he's ever seen has actually seemed interested before, and if he were to tell any of his guy friends what was going on in these dreams, they'd tell him he was crazy. And for a moment, because Tyler feels like she is interested in hearing about it, he lets it all out. 

      Tyler opens his mouth. "He's telling me to kill myself. And I'm not crazy, Doctor Baker, because I only see this figure in my dreams. The only thing is, I don't know where he comes from. But he's pushing me towards a noose, telling me that I shouldn't even bother living anymore, telling me that I should just end it," Tyler almost blurts something out, but then he stops himself. He wants to tell her that that be what the dark figure is telling him to do because of something that happened to Tyler three years back. For a minute, in the silence, Tyler wonders if he should just give up the ghost and tell her. She waits for him to continue patiently. Tyler loses track of time, having a huge lump in his throat and sweaty palms. This needs to happen. He needs to tell her how he feels. Maybe he can ease into telling her what happened to him, but it doesn't have to be so fast. He doesn't want to scare her. "And..And I feel like I'm being watched. All day. I feel like there's something inside of me, making me able to be tracked. And I have good reason to believe this, I promise you," he says. 

      Doctor Baker leans forward closer, inching her chair closer to Tyler's. "And why is that?" she asks, raising one eyebrow. She looks like a little kid being told a story, Tyler notices. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm his hands as they begin to shake. "You can tell me, Tyler. You don't have to be afraid. Remember, what you say in here stays in here unless it might be something that is putting you or your family or friends or myself in danger, because then I would have to tell somebody so that they could give you better help. But, Tyler, there's nothing you have to be afraid of here. Trust me, I've heard it all. Nothing you can say will take me by too much surprise," she says.

Tyler nods and sucks on his mint, gripping his hands together to try to mask the shaking. "If it really needs to be said, let it out," Doctor Baker says. Tyler truly knows inside himself that this is definitely something that needs to be said, but he still is convinced that he might be killed for saying it. Tears prick at his eyes as he recalls the memories. And suddenly, he knows for sure that this finally needs to happen and that he finally needs to tell somebody. 

      Tyler leans forward and takes a shaky breath. "I believe that I'm being tracked because...because," he stutters, taking a deep sigh in frustration before finding the guts to continue. "Because one day, after school three years ago, I got into a car that looked identical to my mother's and ended up driving away with a masked man who put me to sleep and hurt me very badly. He got me home, making me promise not to tell anybody or he would kill me. For the longest time, I didn't know how he would be able to tell if I did tell somebody, but then I figured it out. Just recently. He must have implanted a chip inside of me and has been tracking me for three years. I should not be telling you this. I could die," Tyler says, tears streaming down his cheeks as his body racks with shaking fits. Doctor Baker pushes her chair forward and places her hand on Tyler's knee, but he flinches away. She learns quickly not to touch him and sits back, pushing the chair farther away. 

      "Tyler, I know this is a lot to handle right now. Can you please tell me what the man did to you?" Doctor Baker asks. Tyler bites his lower lip and shakes his head furiously. "Can you at least tell me if your mother knows or not?" she asks. Tyler rocks back and forth in his chair with his knees to his chest. Doctor Baker waits patiently for his answer, writing on the sheet of paper on her clipboard in the meantime. Tyler waits for a minute, trying desperately to calm himself down before he panics too hard. "Good job, Tyler. You're learning how to calm yourself down from anxiety! That's really good. You're doing great. Now, can you tell me if your mother knows?" Doctor Baker asks, her once encouraging smile returning to a grave, serious expression. Tyler shakes his head again. 

      "No, no she doesn't. She has no idea. This is the first time I've ever told anybody. Doctor Baker, he's going to find me and he's going to kill me," Tyler says, returning to crying and panic again. 

      Doctor Baker is extremely serious as she stands up from her chair and looks down on Tyler in his. "Tyler, like I said before, if there is certain information that could be harming you or could potentially harm your family, I have to turn it in so that you can get better help. I have to tell your mother, okay? We'll find who did this. Don't worry. I'll be right back, okay? Stay right here." She opens her office door and rushes out to the waiting room, leaving Tyler alone for a minute. He tries to distract himself by looking up at the pictures she has, at her cactus in the window, at her vase of flowers on the desk. He holds his knees to his chest, making himself smaller, leaving tear stains on his black jeans. Doctor Baker returns with Mrs. Joseph, who looks down at her son with both fear and compassion. 

      "What's going on?" Mrs. Joseph asks, sitting down in the chair next to Tyler's. 

      Doctor Baker sits behind her desk and looks at both Tyler and his mother. "Tyler just told me that three years ago, after school one day, he got into a car that he thought was yours and was taken somewhere and was hurt very badly. That's all he could tell me," she says. Kelly looks at her son with tears in her eyes. 

      "I never knew about this, Tyler," she says, raising a hand to her lips. 

      "I'm sorry, Mom. The person who took me made me promise not to tell anybody, otherwise they would kill me," Tyler says. 

      "Tyler, we really need to know what happened to you," Doctor Baker says seriously and firmly. 

      Tyler squeezes his eyes shut, every memory of that afternoon flooding back to him. He sobs and opens his eyes again, taking the story step-by-step, explaining every detail that he knows of. Tyler's mother has a few tears streaming down her face now, and Tyler hates seeing her that way. Doctor Baker has the most sympathetically-serious face on, something Tyler has never truly seen to this severity in her before. He explains how he thought the car was his mother's on the day that she was late to pick him up. He explains how he was given a shot in his thigh that put him to sleep. As he says this, he feels the needle in his leg again. He explains how he woke up naked, and was taken into a room where he was whipped. He explains how he was put to sleep again on a cold metal table, and how he woke up in the stranger's car again, being dropped off at school. He tells how he went into the school bathroom and puked twice, then went to the gym to wait for his mother. How he played it off by saying he was sick. Tyler's mother stares at him with huge eyes. "How did I not know?" she whispers to herself. "I should have known, Tyler. How did I not figure it out?" 

      Tyler reaches over and takes his mother's hand. "Mom, it's not your fault. I should have told you what happened without being afraid of being killed. He might have just been saying that for the hell of it, anyway. He might not have meant it at all. Maybe he just wanted to scare me," Tyler says, trying his best to comfort her even though he doubts what he's saying is the truth. He still believes he's being watched by the said man. "But since I was asleep, I have no clue what that man really did to me. But I do have an idea, and I think the idea kind of goes without saying," he says. Doctor Baker and his mother both nod. 

      Doctor Baker leans forward. "You say you were whipped? Can you show us any evidence?" she asks, placing her elbows on her desk. Tyler looks from the therapist to his mother, slowly and reluctantly turning around to lift the back of his tee-shirt to expose the scars. As he lifts his shirt the rest of the way up, collective gasps from the two other women fill the tiny room. "Tyler, did you see the face of the man who did this to you?" Doctor Baker asks. Tyler shakes his head and turns around, covering his back again. Doctor Baker reaches for the box of tissues to give to Tyler's mother. "Unless Tyler had knowledge of where he was when it happened or who did it to him, we'll never find the guy. The most we can do is work through what Tyler's going through, keep the police on watch that Tyler might be in danger, and definitely medicate to help the nightmares, paranoia, and anxiety," she says, looking from Kelly to Tyler as Kelly wipes her tears on the tissues she's given. Tyler sighs and sniffs, trying his tears with the back of his hand. "I'm going to prescribe you this new med for paranoia. It should really help you. If you're less paranoid, then that should make you less anxious, so we might not need a new anxiety medication. As for the nightmares, maybe this new medicine for paranoia will help that too. We'll see and then I'll have you back in about three weeks to check up, okay?" she asks after filling Tyler and his mother in on all of this new stuff. 

      Kelly and Tyler Joseph stay in the office for a while longer, doing their best to look semi-presentable before they go home to talk to Tyler's Dad about what's going on. Doctor Baker hands Mrs. Joseph the new prescription as they both stand up to leave. Doctor Baker does her best to assure Tyler that he's safe, even if Tyler won't believe it himself. It doesn't help him, but he accepts her attempt at comfort anyway. As Tyler and his mother exit the building, he stares down at the bright snow on the ground. He doesn't listen to his mother as she weeps and rants about not knowing what happened to him, but instead stares down at his feet as he takes every step to the car. When he reaches the car and sits down in the front seat, his mother still hasn't stopped talking. She apologizes to Tyler nonstop for not doing anything until they reach the pharmacy, where she goes inside to get Tyler's new medicine. He doesn't go in with her, but instead stays in the locked car, staring out the windshield as cars whiz by. Life goes on for everyone else, but it has stopped for Tyler Joseph. 


End file.
